


Jelly

by Porkchop_Sandwiches



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Jealousy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 14:58:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porkchop_Sandwiches/pseuds/Porkchop_Sandwiches
Summary: ...Or Three Men and a Laboratory.





	Jelly

**Author's Note:**

> This diverges from canon after "Half Measures." Wendy's section is set in the same universe sort of as my "Movie Star Bullshit" story but it can stand alone as well.

Out of all the shit Fring could have done to them after Mr. White went all vigilante on those asshole-drug-dealers, this is like honestly hella disgusting.

Jesse adjusts the mask from around his neck and maybe sort of glares at the back of Gale’s head, his poufy-ass hair making the yellow hood he’s got popped up look like he’s smuggling cotton candy or some shit in his hazmat suit.

And well it ain’t like the guy’s a _total_ dick. He’s sure as shit not scary. The dude brings his lunch in a metal Star Wars lunchbox and wears socks with opossums on them. Jesse snickers, just thinking about Gale’s mom-car parked out front with a bike rack like he’s going to excuse himself any minute ‘cause like he needs to pick up his son from soccer practice. Yeah, definitely not intimidating. But he knows what’s he doing down here, down in this giant basement of bullshit that suddenly feels weirdly crowded.

“Exceptional,” Mr. White says. “Gale, sincerely, best batch so far.”

Jesse scratches at his jaw, making faces and mouthing everything back even though nobody’s looking at him pretending to be busy as he adjusts his gloves and plays with clipboards while these two dickwads do their morning routine of jerking each other off basically.

It’s like clockwork with Gale: always here no matter how early Jesse rolls in, even before the sun’s up at the ass-crack of dawn ‘cause its summer, greeting him all, “Good morning, Mr. Pinkman. Ready for another beautiful day in our subterranean laboratory?”, or some other nerdy shit. Then he’s all over Mr. White with compliments and questions and _advise_ on how _they_ cook _they’re_ formula. And Mr. White doesn’t say jack-shit. He’s actually changed some of the steps in their like process for time management shit or whatever.

What’s jacked-up is that it really does save them time. But what’s the point if all of it is spent listening to them talk about chemistry articles and watching them play chess, and Jesse can’t like contribute a goddamn thing?

Gale turns his head enough for Jesse to see the guy smile all shy while raising an eyebrow. “Really? The machine was a little finicky this morning and I wasn’t sure if the beans were evenly saturated. I was thinking a slower pour rate might”—

Mr. White holds up his hand with a mug to his lips. “No. Don’t change a thing. It’s brilliant.”

He pats the guy on the arm—since when did Mr. White even give so many fucking compliments anyway? --and Jesse might hurl ‘cause every morning Jesse’s not here for more than five minutes and he’s already excluded from their nerd club ‘cause he doesn’t drink coffee. Everybody with half a brain knows coffee tastes like straight-up ass. Not that Jesse would know from personal experience, other than like second-hand from maybe watching one dude eat out another dude like he was chowing down on a Gordita Supreme in some porn he accidentally clicked on the other night, not knowing it was gay-shit until it was too late and like his laptop was out of reach so whatever. He didn't come that hard or whatever so it basically didn’t even count.

Jesse’s pretty sure Gale would like to know what Mr. White’s ass tastes like and like saturate the guy’s beans too. His crush on Mr. White is so obvious it’s like sort of painful.

“Yo,” Jesse says. He’s sick of taking his gloves on and off. “You pricks ready to cook or what?”

Gale’s got this big-ass smile on his dumb face. “I believe that’s a fine idea, Mr. Pinkman. Walter, are you prepared to venture forth?”

Jesse just walks on over to the first tank and snaps his gas mask in place. Rubbing his mouth, he mutters, “just blow the guy already,” ‘cause hearing Gale say shit like that every morning doesn’t make it any less gross.

He jumps a little when he feels a tap on his shoulder, and he turns to see Gale way closer than Jesse thought he was. He’s not sure if the guy heard him or not, and maybe Jesse’s too busy trying to find like clues or whatever in the guy’s expression that he doesn’t realize where he’s standing.

“Jesse, you’re in Gale’s way. _Move_ ,” Mr. White says.

Jesse steps aside as Gale sets the ladder up. And if he didn’t feel like a dipshit already, Gale gives him this sad sort of look before he climbs the ladder and asks Jesse if he’s seen _Avatar_. Jesse hasn’t, and then Mr. White’s going off about substance over spectacle or some shit. Gale laughs at something Mr. White says about how cartoonish _Jaws_ could have turned out with today’s computer graphics. Seconds later all Jesse hears is a bunch of techno-language he doesn’t understand.

Shoving in an earbud, he goes for the aluminum and pretends like he doesn’t totally feel like somebody’s lame kid brother tagging along on a midnight run to Taco Bell where everybody in the car’s baked and he barely knows what a bong looks like. Maybe for lunch, while Mr. White’s chewing on his same-as-shit PB & J, Jesse will get Taco Bell and eat like two beef, cheesy Gorditas in front of that vegan motherfucker. The guy totally deserves it.

“ _Jesse_ ,” Mr. White says, voice sounding all grouchy like he’s repeating himself. Jesse can’t remember the last time he’s said more than like four whole words to him. “Gale’s talking to you.”

 Jesse sets down the test strip he was pretending to read and looks up at the guy. “ _What?”_  

“I uh, was just asking if you’ve seen any other movies you liked recently?” Gale smiles. “Or perhaps a particularly stimulating television series.”

Jesse squints. “Um… _no_?”

He turns up the volume of the Biggie Smalls song playing on his iPod, wondering what the hell his deal is anyway. Like, seriously, what a douchebag.

\---

While Wendy’s always happy to see Jesse, it ain’t so fun being around him when he’s in such a pissy mood. If anybody bothered asking her, she’d say he sure seems real ungrateful for a guy who didn’t have to poison nobody. Plus, she heard those scummy, kid-killing drug dealers got capped anyways.

“Yo, what’s with all the cranberry juice? Who even drinks that shit?”

“Hookers who don’t want UTIs,” Wendy says. She’s got two cartons by her bed that are empty now, her nose full of blue, head feeling hollow. “And you too when you were too pussy to drink vodka straight up.”

Jesse kicks one of the plastic jugs across the room and it lands in a pile of dirty leggings and thongs by her dresser.

“I was like _eighteen_. Sorry we can’t all be like white trash like you Wendy, knocking back whiskeys at seven or some shit.”

She glances up from her next line of crystal on the table. “What crawled up your ass?”

“ _What_?”

He’s sitting on the end of her bed now, looking about as put-out as she’s ever seen him, wearing this kind of red shirt with a white skull-soldier-type-thing on it and jeans that fit him nice. He’s still sober: looks like it, smells like it, probably even tastes like it too. She ain’t sure considering he turned her down when she offered to suck him off for the teenth he threw her way. And maybe she shouldn’t bitch at the guy giving her free glass. She just don’t like seeing him like this.

“You don’t talk to me for a month after that burger-shit. I don’t hear nothing from you. And now you’re acting like you’re on the rag,” Wendy says. She rubs at her nose. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong or what?”

Jesse’s quiet for a little bit, bites at those pink, soft lips. “Yo, I’m sorry. I’m just sort of pissed about this…new guy at work.”   

“You got a job?”

His blue eyes get real big. “ _I cook don’t I_?” Screwing his mouth to the side, he scratches at his scruffy head of hair and kind of relaxes. “Sorry, guess I am sort of acting like a little bitch. And actually I feel like I’ve barely been cooking at all. This new guy’s been doing like half of my work.”

Wendy swats at a fly on the curtain that turns out to be a spec of lint, pictures what it would be like to cut her list of assholes in half. “Why the hell are you complaining about that?”

He works his teeth over his bottom lip again. “He and…Heisenberg talk about shit like I’m not even in the same room. Heisenberg and him speak like a different science-y language and are always laughing and”—

“So you’re jealous?” Wendy props her bare feet up on the table, antsy ‘cause she’s already blown through her baggie.

“ _Hell no._ It’s just that the dude’s a total nerd and I don’t want to feel like an idiot sitting around with my thumb up my ass.”

She thinks about painting her toenails pink, and somehow that train of thought brings her to how she’s wondered a time or two if Jesse weren’t a little more homo than he’d like to admit to anybody.

“Can’t you just…I don’t know, study some of this shit? Read a book or something?”

Jesse’s forehead crinkles as he narrows his eyes. “You think I can just read a book and be good at this shit like these guys?”

Wendy doesn’t know a damn thing about cooking meth, but she shrugs anyway. “You think I knew how to take a dick down my throat the first time? Some stuff’s got to take practice, Jesse. You’re too…smart not to…work it out or whatever, you know, make some effort, maybe…ask a question or something like you’re interested. Just do what you’re good at real good.”

“What I’m _good_ at?”

“You’re good at selling, making people laugh”—

“Oh, so I’m like a class clown”—

\--“making people feel good,” Wendy says. She grabs a pack of smokes from the table before she remembers her lighter’s all the way over on her nightstand. Playing with the wrapper, she tries ignoring how he’s almost blushing, how he looks all soft like he used to when he was younger. “Just do the shit you know how to do and…work hard at the other stuff. Hell Jesse, you got any ones. I’m starving and they just put new honey buns in the machine down the hall.”

He chuckles as he shoves a hand in his pocket. “Shit, I guess you’re right.”

Jesse’s laughing like her advice is some kind of joke. She may have been more offended if he wasn’t giving her a handful of dollars.

“Thanks,” she says.

His face looks sweet enough to eat, unfair how pretty he is really. And she swears there’s no way he ain’t at least half homo, no way.

\---

Gale realizes he isn’t in a position to exactly speak up or voice his concerns here. Calling the atmosphere of his work environment tenuous would be an understatement. And he knows being fired and then rehired by an albeit business-savvy, ostensibly reliable, dedicated though none-the-less drug kingpin for a job manufacturing methamphetamines was like pinning a red flag to a red flag. He’s not positive of the circumstances that have led up to his rehiring other than a vague notion that blood has been shed in his leave. 

Since his return he’s contributed only two minor tweaks to their process, offered purely on the basis of being efficient, and they were both suggested with a great deal of caution. Because while Walter seemed to have no qualms with Gale’s inclusion in the lab, even clapping him quite warmly on the shoulder his first day back, Walter’s partner had for all intents and purposes been acting like a feral cat defending its territory. Gale had been working with him for well over a month before he was even encouraged to call him by his first name, which had been earlier last week.

It was maybe Monday or Tuesday when Jesse brought everyone McDonald’s for breakfast, coming in earlier than he had, doing some preliminary cleaning even.

He’d pointed to a paper sack on the side of the work table where Gale liked to keep his things. “Yo, I got you the oatmeal shit; told them to hold the cream. That’s like vegan, right?”

Gale nodded. “Why, thank you. What inspired your stop by the golden arches today, Mr. Pinkman?”

Jesse snorted around a large mouthful of McGriddle. “You can call me Jesse if you want…or whatever.”

Walter had arrived at that point and Jesse’s attention narrowed in on the man like a laser pointer. It stayed there for the remainder of the day, and the rest of that week, even bleeding into the current one.

Prior to this Gale wouldn’t have called Jesse lazy exactly, maybe a little reluctant; cagey may have been a better word. And he’s again reminded of a cat watching Jesse slowly skulk his way closer to Walter, metaphorically speaking of course. He’s been acting more agreeable to Gale as well, and for that matter, it’s been probably _days_ since he’s called Gale any sort of crude variation of “penis,” which is nice. Overall, it’s little changes really: making an effort to step up and lend a hand during parts of the cook requiring more strenuous heavy-lifting, interjecting more during their idle conversations, even concocting topics of his own that often include a little ribbing in Walter’s direction.

“Yo, I read this article about _Jurassic Park_ last night, you know, like the movie?” Jesse was operating the forklift, something neither he nor Walter had yet attempted. “Anyway, it said it took like four dudes to operate the platform for the T-Rex machine, and like designing and constructing that shit took a whole year and almost like killed some of the crew. You guys have seen that one right? I _know_ Mr. White has.”

Walter gave him sort of a half-nod, half-shrug. “Yes. But what makes you so sure I’ve seen it?”

Jesse set their new barrel of methylamine down. “Didn’t your old ass go to prom with like a brontosaurus?”

“That was low-hanging fruit, even for you, Jesse,” Walter said.

“Oh, you want some low-hanging fruit?” Jesse grabbed at his crotch.

Even though Walter rolled his eyes, there wasn’t any heat behind it, both of them even smiling a little. If circumstances had been different, Gale would have called the encounter almost flirtatious.

And there have been many of those as of recent, though typically on Jesse’s end. It’s never anything too showy, maybe a prolonged gaze or a quip. Regardless, Walter seems mostly ignorant of it all. It surprises Gale because with the three of them all working together, productivity has gone up tremendously, stress has gone down, but Walter is as noncommittal and distracted as ever.

Even today at half past four on a Friday with their yield up thirty percent and with nothing to be done but to cross a couple of T’s, Walter has hardly looked up from his clipboard despite Jesse’s ramblings about a documentary he watched on Deep Blue. And for that matter, Jesse’s actually not too shabby at chess when it seems he’s putting in any effort into the game.

Seeming to check the time on his cellular phone, Jesse makes an approving kind of hum. “Shit, we’re getting off early.”

“That so?” Walter says with his pen poised. 

Jesse leans forward against the lab table across from Walter, ducking his face down as if to physically coerce the man into looking at him. “You uh…got any plans tonight, Mr. White?”

Gale snaps the lid shut on another plastic bin of their product and wonders how Walter can so easily brush Jesse off, as if he can’t detect that palpable hanging aura of proposition, so thick it’s practically coming off of Jesse like pheromones, tempting Gale to look away to provide them with some privacy. Walt seems surprisingly disinterested. Surprisingly because while Jesse isn’t Gale’s type, he can’t deny that Jesse is indeed attractive.

“Not really,” Walter says.

“Yo, you want to…grab a beer? You know, since it’s Friday and we totally like killed it this week.”

Walter shrugs and nods as he reaches for his car keys. Jesse is grinning until Walt is glancing Gale’s way.

“Care to join us?”

If Gale had less of a soft heart for the kind of third-wheeling under-dog that was by all means himself from junior high through grad school, he might have found the absolute crumpling of Jesse’s expression almost comical.

“I don’t know Walter, I uh”—

“Come on, Gale. We had a good week. I’m sure we could all use a drink.”

He smiles at Gale and suddenly Gale’s plum out of bumbling excuses not to go. For god’s sake, he hasn’t gone out for drinks with anyone in nearly six years: a blind date set up by a fellow teaching assistant that landed him at a Chili’s happy hour on a Wednesday afternoon with an aesthetician who did nothing but drink margaritas and criticize their server’s nail beds and eyebrows.

The locale Jesse has chosen—Paul’s Monterey Inn--feels more intimate than his date had. This establishments herring less on the side of bottomless-margaritas, which would have clashed with its atmosphere of dark wood furniture, red, plush booths, ambient candle lighting, jazz music, and even a fire blazing on the far side of the room. There’s hardly anyone else here besides the three of them, though Walter is using the facilities at the moment, and Gale wouldn’t exactly say the reproving glower Jesse’s giving him is making Gale feel all that comfortable.   

“You…you, don’t like me…do you, Jesse?” Gale says.

Maybe it’s easier to pluck up his nerve with a whiskey in his system, a beverage selection per Walter’s insistence, and the mint julep he’s currently nursing. No one had commented on Jesse ordering a Coke despite the bar being his idea. It makes sense to Gale anyway, considering how Gustavo had informed him of Jesse’s past drug use and stint in rehab. Gale’s also well aware Jesse’s completely sober so he’s working with more of a filter.

And so he’s blinking heavily in surprise and stutters more so sounds and broken syllabus than actual words.

Gale offers him a consoling smile. “My intentions are not to provoke; I just want to know if I’ve done something wrong? If I said something to offend you?”

With an elbow on the table, he awkwardly fingers the neck of a pale t-shirt with birds soaring across the front, design mostly covered by his large, brown hoodie. “Yo, you’re fine, man. It’s like…”

Jesse doesn’t follow that up with anything, and Gale notes that Walter has emerged from the men’s room. He seems to be buying another whiskey, and Jesse’s watching the man intently, hardly veiled by him periodically chewing his cuticles.

“You don’t think I’m replacing you, do you?”

Jesse’s head jerks up, expression pricklier than ever. “ _Hell_ no. You think you’d even be here if it wasn’t for Mr. White? Think he’d off two guys just so Fring could”—

There’s that not-so-vague notion of bloodshed again. Amazing how little it frightens Gale with just a bit of inebriation.

Jesse’s eyes are a defiant, cerulean blaze. “Mr. White won’t cook without me.”

Slipping ice chips to the back of his mouth, his gaze shifts back to Walter. And Gale isn’t sure if it’s the ambiance making him appear so forlorn and love-sick. Or perhaps it’s easier spotting someone in the closet when you’ve been stuck there amid the tangled wire hangers and musty coats yourself for longer than you can remember.

“I know,” Gale says. “But I wasn’t speaking professionally…if you catch my drift.”

 Jesse’s expression immediately turns cold. “Then what the hell are you even talking about?”

“Your relationship with Walter; your feelings for him, I mean.”

Gales says it so matter-of-fact he swears it must have come from someone with much more prowess and nerve than himself.

“ _Bitch_ , you trying to like imply I’m”—

“Look, I’m not usually this frank. But you don’t need to feel ashamed of anything, not in front of me certainly,” he says, chuckling in a way he hopes conveys self-deprecation. “We both know I’m the last person you’d need to lie about something like this. I mean, you could talk to me if you wanted. Maybe not now but”—

Jesse snaps to his feet, slamming a knee into the table, already fumbling around in his jacket the second Walter is standing by Gale’s side of the booth.

“I uh…I’m gonna grab a smoke,” he says.

Walter doesn’t take Jesse’s seat until the door is swinging shut.

He sips from his highball. “What’s up with him?”

“I don’t think I was exactly invited tonight,” Gale says, taking a slug of his own drink.

“What do you mean?” Walter frowns, waving his hand irritably. “Did Jesse say something to you?”

Gale can feel bourbon at the base of his throat, forehead sweaty, but he folds his hands in his lap and goes on anyway. “No, but I think Jesse wanted to be alone with you tonight. I think he’s…he’s quite…fond of you, more than you may realize…if you catch my drift.”

Walter balks at that. His expression is a cocktail of offense and bewilderment and a touch flattered. They don’t talk for several minutes. The sounds of jazz music and the low hiss of the gas-powered fireplace are somehow simultaneously soothing and nauseating. Cradling his glass with both hands, Walter stares straight down into it as if trying to catch his own reflection.  

His voice is quieter though somehow still just as stern and imposing. “ _Did_ Jesse say something to you?”

The tone he uses makes Gale’s limbs feel gelatinous, his whole system shaky, unable to shake off that feeling he has of balancing between professional admiration and something a little more in the neighborhood of infatuation.

“He said you wouldn’t cook without him. That mean anything to you…Walter?”

Silence lapses over them for another few moments.

Walter shrugs and eyes the door. 

He changes the subject.

\---

When Walt pulls up to the laundromat on Monday morning, he instantly notices Jesse’s car isn’t in its usual spot. Jesse’s car isn’t there at all. Walt had overslept, which wasn’t his fault with last night’s storm and subsequent power outage making his alarm clock completely ineffective. And the grey, mucky weather still lingering with splotchy clouds and a windy mist had kept his room dark as well. Checking his watch, Walt sees it’s a quarter after nine. Jesse should have been here by eight at the latest.

He slams his door shut as the rain picks up, not bothering to open the umbrella he’s carrying because he’s too preoccupied trying to avoid a pothole that somehow manages to soak the hem of his left pant-leg up to his ankle despite his efforts. Once he’s managed to reach shelter, he almost slips on the slick floor. No one seems bothered by how puddled everything is, most of the workers standing around in a kind of sleepy, Monday-morning fog.

Walt’s honestly exhausted himself. He hadn’t slept well last night and he isn’t looking forward to this week at all. Fring has insisted that in light of their increased production this past month they can afford to dedicate a solid seven days for a thorough, deep cleaning of the lab. It’s certainly a three-man job, which they need Jesse for, and Walt won’t stand for Jesse skipping out regardless of the nonsense Gale spoke of the previous Friday evening. Because if Jesse wasn’t par-for-the-course slacking off, the only other reason Walt could figure for his absence would be that Gale had told him something. He’d been distant and withdrawn when he’d come back inside the bar, smelling like his brand of cigarettes and looking guilty. Though acknowledging Jesse looked uncomfortable would mean putting any sort of stock in any of that ridiculous business of Gale’s; absurd notions that Walt may have been ruminating on all weekend.

He was too tired for that now.

Finally stepping into the lab, he’s more than a little startled to find Jesse suited up, intensely focused alongside Gale.

Aside from some obligatory greetings, Walt doesn’t address them until he’s changed.

Walt grabs his gas mask. “Jesse, where’s your car?”

Jesse peers down at him from the ladder. “It’s in the shop. Gale gave me a ride.”

“We stopped for breakfast at Denny’s too,” Gale says, smiling. “If you can believe it, I’d never been. Jesse’s introduced me to the world of Denny’s pancakes.”

Jesse chuckles. “Yo, what I’d tell you? Way better than IHOP, am I right?”

“Oh, most certainly,” Gale says.

And then they’re babbling on about fluffy verse dense, circumference difference, too runny or too thick maple syrup. It’s vaguely irritating, but Walt doesn’t know why so he moves past it.

The day dredges on as more of the same: the two of them chummier than he’s ever witnessed, laughing even. Jesse’s hardly said a word to him as if avoiding something, or maybe Walt’s projecting. Perhaps its only to test his theory, to see if he can engage the boy at all, that makes Walt point to the instrument Jesse has just completed scrubbing.

“I think you could eat off of that,” Walt says.

He looks up from his spot on the floor. “ _Huh_?”

“It’s uh…good. Good job, Jesse.”

“Thanks?” Jesse says.

And even though he’s squinting, Walt doesn’t miss the kind of upturned curve to his mouth despite him rubbing at his nose.

A minute or two later when Jesse sneezes, Walt feels slightly triumphant saying, “Bless you,” before Gale. Though his interjection leaves him with more embarrassment than anything else, sentiment present long into the next day during their lunch hour when Jesse emerges from the break room with some sort of glass Tupperware.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” he says, mouth indecently full. “Yo, you made this shit with cashews?”

Gale grins over his neatly packed salad. “Yes. It’s one a hundred percent vegan lasagna, and that “cheesy” taste your getting is made predominately from cashews. Marvelous, isn’t it?

Jesse snickers. “Yeah man, _marvelous_.”

Shoveling in another heaping bite, he moans in a way that’s quasi-pornographic. Walt rolls his eyes. His peanut butter and jelly feels inadequate and bland. He doesn’t have all that much of an appetite anyway, and he only feels worse the later it gets.

Walt wants to strangle Jesse for passing off whatever it is that’s making him sneeze so much. But he surmises Jesse isn’t to blame at all when he’s back at his condo, hunched over the toilet, vomiting violently and for hours on end as if he were undergoing chemotherapy again. He spends the entire night in his bathroom and has to call Gale at seven the next morning to let him know he’s come down with some sort of stomach virus.

Sitting on the end of his bed in nothing but his underwear, he feels oppressively warm, dizzy, and nauseous yet ravenously hungry, craving of all things, a peanut butter sandwich with apricot jelly. He only has strawberry, and peanut butter doesn’t seem the wisest of choices in his state. Walking to the kitchen doesn’t seem favorable in the slightest.

Instead, he yanks the comforter down to the far edge of the mattress, covering himself in only his sheet as he tries to sleep this thing off. Rest seems to allude him however in lieu of fever dreams that are comprised mostly of muddled images of hands and teeth except for one. It’s late the next morning, vomiting only lightly subsided at this point, when Walt drifts off feeling clammy and drained. In his dream, he is standing in his kitchen with a large peanut butter and apricot jelly sandwich, beginning to wolf it down only when he feels something foreign brush against his lip. Opening his mouth, he sees an incredibly small Jesse Pinkman lounging affably on his tongue as if waiting to ask him a question. Walt spits him out and he’s big again, or however big anyone could describe Jesse, and his face is between Walt’s legs. _He’s_ inside _Jesse’s_ mouth now though in an entirely different context.

Walt wakes up on his stomach with an erection he has no interest in tending to. He rolls over on his left side and falls into a deep sleep that finds him in the exact same position the next time he opens his eyes with drool on his cheek and his room inky black.

His fever has broken and his vertigo has cleared. The time on his phone reads just past ten PM. He’s absolutely famished.

There’s a twenty-four hour Albertson’s a few blocks from his condo. He’s changed and in route faster than he can second-guess the questionable desires of his stomach. And it isn’t until he’s marching through the automatic doors into a blare of fluorescent lights and the strong smell of fish and that he’s reminded of his feigned fugue state. He doesn’t dwell on it.

Walt finds his apricot jelly, turns into an aisle he hadn’t intended to—the layout here is flipped from the one he’s used to shopping in—and he’s trying to read the directional labels above him when he spots the back of a familiar brown jacket.  

He almost considers turning around seeing as the boy seems quite deep in thought studying a shelf of juice pouches.

Walt taps him on the shoulder. Jesse nearly jumps clean out of his skin.

“ _Shit_ ,” Jesse mutters.

He instantly backs away, scanning their surroundings. Everything in his rigid posture seems wary as if they aren’t allowed to speak to one another in public or as if he’s expecting Walt to yell at him for attempting to. But the aisle they’re in is empty and even if it weren’t, Walt doesn’t exactly need an excuse to talk to Jesse at a supermarket; they were student and teacher and one point after all.

“Hello,” Walt says with a nod.

 “‘Sup?” Jesse nods too though still guarded and off to the side as he’s turned back to shelf, head low, pretending to browse. He’s holding a basket filled mostly with an assortment of frozen foods. “How uh…how you feeling?”

Walt shifts his own basket to his other hand and shrugs. “Much better actually.”

“Gale said you were like throwing up a lot,” Jesse says. He looks at Walt pointedly from the corner of his eye. “It’s…not…not like the cancer is it?”

“Oh no, just a stomach bug. I’m fine, really,” Walt says.

A pre-recorded message for half-off Toaster Strudels and discounted dish detergent muddles whatever Jesse says but he chances another look around before he claps Walt on the arm. The gesture is appreciated to an almost flustering degree. The back of his neck feels toasty.

“Is your car out of the shop?

Jesse shakes his head.

“Are you here with Gale?” Walt says. He belatedly considers his tone sounds more irritated than such a thing probably warranted.

“ _What?”_ He scoffs, finally fully facing him now, features pinching in suspiciously.

“With your girlfriend then?” Walt lifts a shoulder towards the juice boxes he’s been perusing this whole time. “She has a son, correct?”

“Nah. I mean yeah, she’s got a son. But uh…we actually broke up,” Jesse says. His chest sags somewhat but he smirks too. “The Capri-Sun is totally for me. Well, Badger too. He gave me a ride. He’s uh…somewhere I guess.”

He makes a vague waving motion with his arm, both of them following the gesture. And it appears they both notice they’ve been conducting this entire conversation while standing a few feet from the condoms and lubricants.

“Planning on buying any cashews?” Walt says. He’s disappointed when Jesse only appears confused, though his attempt at lighthearted teasing is a little difficult when he feels so lightheaded.

Thankfully recognition dawns on him eventually. He snickers and chews on the corner of his mouth before nodding down to Walt’s basket.

“You passed the peanut butter, yo. It’s one row back.” When Walt gives him a blank response, Jesse tags on, “Mr. White, you eat like the same thing for lunch every day. And you can’t have a PB & J without like peanut butter, man.”

“ _Oh_ …right,” Walt says. “I only need the jelly right now. I’m actually looking for toothpaste.”

“Me too. It’s uh…you can follow me,” Jesse says, edging around him towards the deli section where a man in a tank top is leafing through packets of ham. “Speaking of jelly, didn’t realize KY was like the us of lube.”

“Excuse me?”

They pass two rows before taking a left by a shelf of school supplies.

He cranes his neck back as he walks. “You know like…dominating the market.”

A sharp bark of laughter escapes Walt, surprising the both of them though Jesse laughs as well. It’s rather pleasant picking out toothpaste next to him and nodding as he leaves to find his friend.

And Walt is in similarly good spirits when he returns to the lab on Friday morning.

He’s mildly discouraged to see how much cleaning there’s left to be done, though they have been a man short for the past two days and the laboratory _is_ looking far more pristine that Walt’s ever seen it. The lab seems a little more cramped with odds and ends of machinery loose from their hosts, and it smells…different.

When Walt inquires about the odd odor, elbows-deep in one of the tanks, Jesse is quick to respond.

“Yo, it’s kind of pickle-y, right?” Jesse says. He’s hovering over a bucket, looking for all intents and purposes like an eager child preparing to bob for apples. “Gale made this like cleaning solution, all organic ‘cause we think the other shit was making me sneeze and giving me like other allergy stuff. He says it’s better for your skin. Gale said it would be like healthier and shit for your lungs too.”

Walt makes a noncommittal hum and keeps his head down, and the tactic works because Jesse shuts his mouth with no reaction from Gale other them him nodding encouragingly the entire time. His silence is short spent however once Jesse is asking Gale exactly how he came up with the ingredients of his solution.

“Vinegar and baking soda and water?” Jesse says.

“Well that’s simply the base. If you were cleaning say your microwave, that may do, but with the kind of industrial equipment we’re working with, we need something a little more…stringent though still gentle.”

Walt scrubs harder in attempt to at least muffle their voices. Since when did Jesse refer to Gale and him as a _we_? When did Jesse even pose pertinent questions that weren’t entirely asinine? Why was everything suddenly ‘ _Gale_ this’ and ‘ _Gale_ that?’ For god’s sake he’s only been gone for two days.

“Nothing’s funny,” Jesse says, chuckling. “I’m just like surprised I understood more than half the stuff you just said. Yo, you’re pretty good at explaining shit. Were you like a teacher or something?”

Walt clenches his jaw almost subconsciously and tries to focus on reaching deeper into the tank.

“I was a teaching assistant for the majority of grad school.”

Snorting, Walt covers it with a cough. But really, TAs were glorified secretaries with egos. There was very little teaching involved.

Descending the ladder for more cleaning solution, Walt would have normally been pleased spending the rest of the work day and a few overtime hours in relative silence. But it somehow annoys him more than the mindless chatter.

Changing by his locker, Gale fetching something or other from the breakroom, Walt turns to Jesse.

“Are you up for a beer?” Walt says. Jesse looks deeply confused from his spot on the bottom step, reaching for a sneaker. “It’s Friday?”

He doesn’t intend to make that a question, and maybe that’s why Jesse only looks further perplexed.

“My uh…car’s still in the shop and Gale’s got this like…book club or some shit tonight.”

Walt fastens the last of the buttons on his shirt. “I have a car. It’s no problem giving you a lift home afterwards. I know where you live, you know?”

Jesse snickers as he tightens his laces. “Wow, could you sound _more_ like a serial killer, Mr. White?”

“So, is that a no?” Walt yanks his keys from his locker.

“Nah,” Jesse says, smiling. “Let’s get a beer, yo.”

Walt nods, waiting for Jesse to inform Gale of their plans—as if Gale were his goddamn domestic partner—and Walt may be smiling a touch too.

The bar is close enough to the lab that they don’t have time to bother with the radio though it does give them enough time to get their hopes up.

“Seriously?” Jesse says. Posted on the front door of Paul’s Monterey Inn is a red and yellow ‘Closed for Cleaning’ sign. “Ironic, right?”

“More of an unfortunate coincidence,” Walt says.

“So like more like Alanis Morissette ironic?”

When Walt gives Jesse a blank stare from across the console, Jesse laughs.

“Never mind, yo,” he says. He drums his fingers lazily against the dashboard, his fingers appearing especially bony in the empty, shadowy parking lot. “You know whiskey probably wouldn’t have been like the best thing on your stomach anyway.”

“I was most likely going to order a ginger ale.”

“And I was gonna get a Coke,” Jesse says, lifting an eyebrow in a manner that makes him look rather impish. “So what, you were asking me out for a soda, Mr. White? We in like the fifties or some shit? Planning on like...parking your car somewhere so we could make out after?”

His face sours with his words but Walt doesn’t completely take the bait.

“How is fooling around in a car limited to the nineteen-fifties? Kids weren’t doing that when you were younger?”

Jesse groans as he smears a hand across his face before hooking it around the back of his neck and looking out the passenger-side window.

“Oh my god, I just remembered something. But it’s…uh, kind of a weird story. One time like really late senior year of high school, me and the boys tried getting in _this_ bar with our new fakes we just got. They didn’t work so we ended up buying some cheap-ass vodka and skunk weed off Combo’s cousin’s boyfriend and then going to a strip club and then the Taco Bell down the street. And we’re baked out of our minds going to town on some bean burritos in the parking lot, right? Well Badger, like out of the blue is like, ‘Yo, let’s all jack off,’ ‘cause the dude was all horned-up from the strip club. He said it wouldn’t be weird if we just talked through it, like if we were all doing it in the dark but talked about what we were gonna do later and act normal or whatever.” He sniffs. “Yo, I don’t know why I just told you that shit. Cleaning products got my brain all jacked-up.”

He chuckles sort of under his breath, and Walt’s tempted to drop it.

“Did you?” he asks.

Jesse’s eyes widen. “ _No_. I threw some cinnamon twists at the guy and told him to shut the hell up and then we played Crash Bandicoot at Pete’s house until like five in the morning. There’s like no way I would have done something like that, like not with _them_ , you know?”

Walt distractedly nods, holding on to that emphasized _them_ , attempting to decipher if there’s more there to read into. Rolling down his windows to let in some air, he hears a plane pass overhead and some light traffic on the closest street, and maybe it’s his imagination, but he swears he can smell the fumes coming from the very Taco Bell Jesse has just mentioned. It’s perhaps three blocks West so it isn’t too far of a stretch that Walt can indeed detect a whiff of nacho cheese and refried beans. 

He straightens up a little in his seat when he feels a cramp in his lumbar. How long have they been sitting here?  

Turning the key, he switches his headlights back on.

“I could really go for a burrito if…you’re up for it?”

Jesse squints with a kind of befuddled smile. “I guess?”

Walt is already driving in that direction with the windows still down and the breeze is unnaturally cool for July and pleasant. “Your little…anecdote inspired me.”

“ _Inspired_ you?”

He seems rather wary about that, very uncharacteristically quiet and contemplative until he’s ordering a beef Gordita Supreme with nachos and a Baja Blast Mountain Dew. Walt gets himself a bean burrito and follows suit with Jesse’s beverage selection. He pays for the both of them, and Jesse’s, “Yo, thanks man,” sounds equal parts genuine and astonished.

“It’s nice out,” Walt says when Jesse questions why they’re eating in the parking lot.

Jesse snorts, mouth full of fake cheese. “Yo, we’re both basically millionaires, hella sober, eating Taco Bell at nine o’ clock on a Friday.”

Walt shrugs. “Living the dream, Jesse.”

Jesse laughs harder before going into another story about one of his friends, and Walt develops an appreciation for Baja Blast. And at the end of the next day, once all of the cleaning is finally done and put behind them, Walt tells Jesse he’s just discovered a la the internet that Baja Blast is exclusively sold at Taco Bell.

“Want to…go again?” Walt says.

He’s developed a taste for it now. It only makes sense.

“Hell, yeah. I’m always down for Taco Bell.” He seems to hesitate, jerking his head back to where Gale is grabbing his idiotic Star Wars lunch pail. “Not sure if Gale could each much there though.”

“Who said he was coming?”

It’s amusing how much effort Jesse puts in covering his mouth with the side of his hand—sly smile plastered all over his face—as Gale wishes them a good night. And soon they’re back in their exact parking space from the night before. There are more cars here now than the night before which only makes their spot nearly at the farthest end of the lot make a little more sense. They’re actually closer to the back entrance of a Best Buy than the fast food joint. And it isn’t until someone in a blue polo is taking the garbage out that Walt realizes it’s past ten. They’ve been sitting here for well over two hours, speaking amicably about the beginning of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week and sharing Walt’s order of cinnamon twists, which are mostly underwhelming.

“Told you, Mr. White,” Jesse says, snarky and smirking.

Walt doesn’t verbally agree but he does stop for Oreo McFlurries on the way to Jesse’s house. They’ve both wolfed them down by the time they’ve reached Jesse’s driveway, though he makes no move as if to leave.

He’s thumbing his plastic spoon and flicking it back like it’s a small catapult, muttering what sounds like something about ten thousand spoons and needing a knife.

“What was that?” Walt says.

Jesse shakes his head. “Nothing. Uh, thanks for the ice cream.”

“Sure.”

Jesse’s neighborhood is well-lit though many of the homes on his block are dark aside from one house two doors down where Walt can hear someone having a large summer gathering in the back, cars jamming up the drive and down both sides of the street. A man and woman around Walt’s age are getting out of a dark blue Volvo station wagon with large paper grocery bags and a crock-pot. Walt can faintly hear some sort of samba music. 

“So apparently the mechanic’s got to order some part they only have in like Houston and my car’s not gonna be ready until Tuesday,” Jesse says. He tips his chin up and leans into the headrest. “No wheels, yo. It’s like I’m eighteen and grounded again. Sunday’s gonna be totally awesome.”

“Did you have any pressing prior engagements?” When Jesse side-eyes him rather ruthlessly, Walt recognizes how he could have construed that as condescending instead of curious. And he was simply curious, so he claps him lightly on the knee as some sort of form of apology. “What I meant was, we’ve worked a twelve-hour shift, maybe it would be best to take it easy tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Jesse says with his gaze low.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, ‘guess.”

He seems oddly less fidgety than usual, which is strange to even notice until Walt slowly comprehends he still has a hand on Jesse’s knee. It’s been there, what, a minute-minute and a half? Regardless, well past Jesse’s cue to bat him away.

“I’m most certainly sleeping in tomorrow,” Walt says.

It’s mindless babble but something to fill the relative silence in his car, accompanied only by the dull noise of the neighboring shin-dig, crickets, a mini-van pulling in the driveway across the street, cicadas, someone walking a barking Labrador that Walt can see from his rear-view mirror.

When Jesse speaks, it almost startles Walt. His voice sounds husky and raw.

“You got any other…stuff planned for tomorrow?” Jesse says. “I’m probably gonna make some pancakes ‘cause my milk’s about to go bad.”

While it’s hardly a fraction of an inch, Jesse seems to angle his lower body in the direction of Walt’s hand. And in spite of how minimal the movement is, it’s only natural—like stretching his legs on an airplane seat when the passenger next to him stands to retrieve something in the overhead compartment—to let his fingers fall further to the inseam of Jesse’s jeans.

“Are you folding anything into them?”

“Into what?”

Walt is patting Jesse’s thigh more than anything else, sort of a ‘Good job, Champ,’ sports-thing though maybe slightly less decent. He’s not sure, never been much of an athlete.

“Your pancakes.”

“Yo, how can you fold shit into pancakes?”

“It’s a cooking term. Like adding something like fruit or nuts to a batter. Make sense?”

Walt’s using just the pads of his fingers to rub up the inside of Jesse’s thigh.

“Oh...right. I was thinking plain. Don’t got any fruit.”

Walt pulls his hand back to pause momentarily.

He reaches over and pops the button free.  

“Why do I get the feeling your diet isn’t all that balanced?

“Yo, this coming from the guy who eats a PB & J like five days a week like he’s five years old? Your mom forget to pack you a Capri-Sun, Mr. White?”

Walt drags the zipper down one small section of its metal teeth at a time.

“Are you offering to share, son?”

Jesse makes a slight choking sound, splays his knees. “Son; Capri-Sun. That a pun or some shit?”

Walt’s still unzipping him. The position of Walt’s arm has lifted Jesse’s shirt a little above his waistline and Walt can almost see a shudder skimming just below his skin.

“I guess.”

His fly is open now, dark grey boxers peeking through. Walt lets his hand hover.

“Bacon,” Jesse says.

“What?”

“Gonna make bacon…with the pancakes.” He licks his lips, eyes briefly darting to Walt, then back to the dashboard. “What about you? Like an omelet?”

“Maybe just oatmeal,” Walt says.

While the option is available so to speak, Walt isn’t sure if he wants to go probing in Jesse’s pants. The notion doesn’t entirely lack appeal, just isn’t striking Walt as plan A exactly. Not that any of this has been planned or at least not in his conscious thoughts.

Walt traces the grooves of his zipper. He thumbs the silver button as if he were polishing a coin.

“What flavor?” Jesse asks.

“I prefer steel-cut, make it myself on the stove. I’ll probably add some molasses and brown sugar. I’m not sure if I’m out of raisins.”

Jesse hisses almost when Walt fingers just the lip of the waistband of his boxers, touches bare skin.

“I like the apple kind. You know like the microwave shit, tastes better.”

Walt hooks his hand around the slim outline of Jesse’s thigh.

“Did you know your quadriceps can be broken down into three major muscle groups?” Walt waits for Jesse to shake his head. “Yes: Vastus Lateralis, Vastus Medialis, and Rectus Femoris.”

Walt presses into each, though it’s really the general area because he hasn’t been in an anatomy class since before Jesse was even born. He begins to massage the lean muscles there, slowly and not too hard, which doesn’t appear unsolicited as Jesse’s breath has picked up a fraction.

“Ain’t there like a nerve or some shit somewhere too?” Jesse licks his lower lip. “Where’s uh…where’s that?”

“You mean your femoral artery?”

Walt digs his middle and forefinger into the very place, feeling Jesse rock into it a bit, his pulse hammering as if he’d just been running. There’s a spike when someone slams a car door from what sounds like a little too close for comfort. But the group of young women is maybe twenty feet away and walking in the opposite direction. Their white VW Bug looks like a fried egg in the dull glow of the moon.

Walt cups him with an opened palm over his exposed fly, dipping in a teasing finger he uses to caress where the flap of his boxers starts. He can feel Jesse ever so slightly strain to push up against him.

“Do you like eggs, Jesse?” Walt goes back to kneading his inner thighs, more than flattered when Jesse seems speechless, nodding his response. “Scrambled or over-easy?”

Walt slides his hand down the front of Jesse’s boxers. The boy feels small—hardly a handful--but rigid through the poly-cotton blend material, fabric damp. On literally direct contact, once Walt is wrist-deep inside denim, he can feel Jesse come. It wets his palm in stickiness, which Jesse is grinding into languidly; raspy, little gasps puffing from his mouth.

It’s confusing how appealing it all is.

“ _Shit_ ,” Jesse says. He jerks his hips up a few more times before essentially melting into the seat. “ _Shit_.”

Walt speaks hardly above a whisper, “Over easy then?”

He circles his hand slack around Jesse’s wrist as Jesse snickers, pulling at an arm that’s giving him no resistance even when he guides Jesse’s down to the swell in his slacks.

Under his breath, Jesse sighs out, “ _Shit_.” Scraping his teeth across his upper lip, he thumbs, almost pets, Walt’s hand before placing the weight of his own against Walt’s crotch, giving him startlingly direct eye contact. He begins to stroke him, chuckling. “Scrambled, yo. With cheese or hot sauce. Sometimes ketchup. Or like…I don’t know. You ever put jelly on your scrambled eggs, Mr. White?”

\---

Jesse bucks into the dude’s hand that’s firm but not tight enough on his crotch. Mr. White is going off about the difference between jams and preserves. It’s Monday evening after work, like a quarter ‘til six and the sun’s still out and it smells like honeysuckles and the guy’s drugstore deodorant and there are like kids playing a block over and everything, and Mr. White’s talking about like fruit compote. And while this talking-about-nothing-while-we-touch-each-other-shit was like helpful or whatever the first time, you can basically only pretend bullshit isn’t, well, bullshit for only so long.

“You want to like…come…inside?” Jesse says.

Talking ain’t exactly easy when Mr. White is rubbing him like _that_. Why the hell does this even feel so good? And _shit_ he almost chokes on his own damn spit when Mr. White shoves his whole fucking hand right inside Jesse’s boxers.

“Do you have the kind of…supplies necessary?” Apparently moaning and humping the guy’s palm isn’t the answer he wants. “I think you’d call _us_ the _them_ of methamphetamine. ‘Dominating the market, yo?’”

Jesse scoffs. “I meant inside my _house_ , perv. _Shit_ , what the hell? Not my ass. My house, man.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just ‘cause?”

Jesse’s shutting the door behind them like two minutes later and his living room feels way too big compared to Mr. White’s car. It’s like open as hell in here. And he knows if he doesn’t do something _right_ now then it’s all over and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want that.

“Are you going to offer me a drink? Water? Maybe a juice box or”—

Jesse walks up to him, tries grabbing at the guy’s jacket all boss and shit except he’s too shaky to do more than sort of grip where the zipper is, and he has no idea what Mr. White was about to say.

He just kisses the dude.

Then he gives Mr. White a second. Jesse stands in front of him, tense with his feet like rooted to the hardwoods like he might get punched or something.

Jesse kisses him again. Mr.  White kisses him back this time. So like, what the hell, Jesse keeps going.

 


End file.
